Friday, September 19, 2014

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.]

Where do you go for food when you’re at a literary festival on a weekend and the places open on weekdays are closed? When the N.C. Literary Festival was held this year in Raleigh, the answers to feed the hungry public were food trucks. The festival drew thousands to author readings and discussions, performances, book signings, and children activities. Can you imagine how hungry these events made everyone?

Food trucks kept the literary festival crowd from getting too hungry.

Food trucks can be ready to satisfy the hunger demands as the crowd surges during special events. The trucks often have well-established reputations for quick and tasty food. The clue for which trucks are really good is the length of the line of customers waiting to place orders. Twitter is often helpful to receive updates on times and locations that favorite trucks are serving.

Friday, September 5, 2014

[Note: This post, prepared originally for the NC Folklife Institute's NCFood blog, is hosted on the institute’s website, with excerpts and a link to the website posted here.]

To watch cheese being made, taste some artisan cheese samples, and take home a package or two, I headed to the Blue Ridge area of our state to travel part of the Western North Carolina Cheese Trail. Little did I expect to be bottle-feeding a day-old baby goat. Within minutes after arriving at Round Mountain Creamery near Black Mountain, NC, I was holding a full bottle of warm milk for an eager kid who cared little about who was feeding it.

The feeding was all part of the tour that I had arranged the day before.
Before visiting the creamery, I reviewed information about the Western North Carolina Cheese Trail online. The trail, established in 2013, links together farms and creameries that show how artisan cheeses are made from goat and cow milk and inform visitors about the art and science of cheese-making. Helping to promote the cheese trail is the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project (ASAP), which builds local food connections and helps area farms succeed.